Elizabeth

Elizabeth is one of the great women of faith in the New Testament — the wife of the priest Zechariah, a descendant of Aaron, and the mother of John the Baptist. Like Sarah, Hannah, and the other barren women of the Bible, Elizabeth bore the pain of childlessness in a society that viewed it as a mark of divine disfavour. Yet Luke tells us that both she and Zechariah were "righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments" (Lk 1:6). Her suffering was not a punishment but a preparation.

When the angel Gabriel appeared to Zechariah in the Temple and announced that Elizabeth would bear a son who would prepare the way of the Lord, Zechariah doubted and was struck mute. Elizabeth conceived, and when she was six months pregnant, her young cousin Mary arrived from Nazareth, carrying the newly conceived Jesus in her womb. The scene that followed — the Visitation — is one of the most theologically rich moments in the entire Gospel.

When Mary greeted Elizabeth, the child in Elizabeth's womb leapt for joy, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. She cried out with a loud voice: "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me?" (Lk 1:42-43). This was the first public recognition that Mary carried the Son of God — and it came not from a priest or prophet but from a woman filled with the Spirit. In Catholic tradition, Elizabeth's greeting forms part of the Hail Mary, the most beloved prayer of the Marian devotion, prayed billions of times across the centuries.